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oa Euthanasie en psychisch lijden
Empathie voorbij elk taboe?
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte, Volume 111, Issue 2, Jun 2019, p. 175 - 194
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- 01 Jun 2019
Abstract
Euthanasia and psychological suffering: empathy beyond any taboo?
Nowadays, when facing the death wish of a patient, a psychiatrist in Belgium or the Netherlands may legally initiate euthanasia. Proponents of this situation argue that a psychiatric patient’s autonomy and the seriousness of his or her suffering ought to be acknowledged and taken fully seriously. A psychiatrist’s consent to euthanasia will here have to be grounded on an assessment of psychological suffering that cannot be purely medical in character, which in turn will have to depend, for a good deal, on empathy. However, a closer look at such empathy uncovers various paradoxes and leads to the conclusion that a psychiatrist with the kind of empathy that is appropriate to his or her role, i.e., ‘cognitive’ empathy, will resist rather than go along with the patient’s death wish.